Tuesday, 15 June 2010

Between Rita and my eyesThere is a rifleAnd whoever knows RitaKneels and praysTo the divinity in those honey-colored eyesAnd I kissed RitaWhen she was youngAnd I remember how she approachedAnd how my arm covered the loveliest of braidsAnd I remember RitaThe way a sparrow remembers its streamAh, RitaBetween us there are a million sparrows and imagesAnd many a rendezvousFired at by a rifle

Rita's name was a feast in my mouthRita's body was a wedding in my bloodAnd I was lost in Rita for two yearsAnd for two years she slept on my armAnd we made promisesOver the most beautiful of cupsAnd we burned in the wine of our lipsAnd we were born again

Ah, Rita!What before this rifle could have turned my eyes from yoursExcept a nap or two or honey-colored clouds?Once upon a timeOh, the silence of duskIn the morning my moon migrated to a far placeTowards those honey-colored eyesAnd the city swept away all the singersAnd Rita

Thanks for the links. Amazing performance ... and if anything can be better than the music, it is when so many people in the audience join in, knowing each and every word. The singing brings another dimension to the poem and the unabashed love from the audience is beyond dimension.

This earlier performance has more traditional instrumentation. Here the audience participation is in fact a part of the performance. Also very, very eloquent and moving.

(Biographical readings can be limiting with any poem and particularly so with poetry of this level of connotative resonance. But it's been pointed out and is perhaps useful to know that the "original" of Rita was an Israeli girl Darwish fell in love with in Haifa in the 1960s, when in his early twenties.)

Something here as 'echo' of "Earthrise from Apollo 8 (hope things are good over there. . . .) --

hey, saw that first edge of sun rising again (almost an hour ago), crows and quails and hawks and sparrows calling. . . .what a day of swimming yesterday, we didn’t get home until after 7 (w/ detour through San Rafael after leaving pool, then returning to pool for another swim before heading back — not surprising he’s still sound asleep. everything seems to fit (placewise) in this one ---

Stay tuned for a surefire kitty tomorrow. It may be hidden, so I hope you like cat puzzles.

(Yesterday was a bit sticky, medical/pharmaceutical/infernal bureaucratic healthcare businesses, all very bad for kitty stuff -- don't think your request was not on my mind however.)

Elmo, the vocal in any region may be the loudest and even the bloodiest, but there are also the serious, quiet ones. They're the ones I would always prefer to listen to, in or from any region.

As for swords, I dunno, the guys who own that part of the world have a pretty big arsenal, and they make all the rules, so to them a Bic razor maybe sometimes comes out looking like a sword, and then out roll the the choppers and the tanks. Takes two to make a paradise.

Steve, that latest entry is pristine as a freshly oxygenated aquatic bubble.

And so cometh the day, I think. (On no sleep it is not always easy to tell, until, that is, your morning poem arrives.)

we should close the umbrellaswe should go under the rainwe should take the thoughts, the memories into the rainwith all the people of the citywe should go under the rainwe should meet the friend under the rainwe should look for love under the rainwe should sleep with the woman under the rainwe should play games under the rainunder the rainwe should write... talk... and plant lotus...